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My wife and I went to the ribbon-cutting for the new SF Jazz Center at the corner of Franklin and Fell in San Francisco today. This is the first theater built specifically for jazz in the US, or maybe the world. It has a 700 seat theater, and a variety of smaller teaching and performance areas.

One of the interesting aspects of the building is that the performance spaces are visible from the street. There is a window that looks right in at the stage. The sound is very good from all over the theater.

If any of you come to San Francisco, be sure to take in a show there.

The grand opening concert with McCoy Tyner will be streamed live on NPR Music Wednesday evening.

There was quite an extensive article on it a few weeks back in the Times. The place looks incredible! Congrats to the city of SF and surrounding areas.

After reading the article , not sure I'd be into a lot of the "artists". It sounds as if he's trying to be all things to all people ...which I understand in this day and age. I hope he's successful in his venture.

. . . After reading the article , not sure I'd be into a lot of the "artists". It sounds as if he's trying to be all things to all people ...

Actually, Dave, when I saw this thread last night, I was tempted to comment that, with McCoy Tyner being the headliner, at least they were presenting real jazz, and not some sort of hybrid off-shoot. Based on what you are writing, perhaps I got excited too soon.

Each summer I bemoan the fact that it is becoming difficult to find any jazz at any of the several "jazz festivals" here in the Northeast (and probably ay Newport, also.) The JVC Jazz Festival in the City still has a lot to offer, and then there is the one in Rochester (NY), tauted as great, receiving rave reviews, and for which half of the city turns out. It has featured such renowned greats as the Queen of Zydaco, and the Mambo Kings were another top headliner!

I feel a new thread about definitions brewing up inside me. . .

Ed

_________________________
In music, everything one does correctly helps everything else.

Once you start narrowing the type of music that you call jazz, not only do you restrict the freedom to use other music as an influence, but you also turn jazz into a classical form, in which case it ceases to be jazz.

In any case, there is a big enough variety of music at the Center that if you decide you do not like what is playing one day, you will probably find something that suits you a day or so later.

SF Jazz has been a big influence over the years, which has affected a lot of other presenters. That has blurred the distinctions between genres, broadening the type of music available here. Organizations who presented classical music exclusively now present jazz artists. One prominent artist told me that he can play the forms of music that he wants to elsewhere because he could play it at SF Jazz. All that is to the better.

The Center has a Steinway D, and a Yamaha CFX will be arriving soon. Yamaha will supply the rest of the pianos along with it.

. . . After reading the article , not sure I'd be into a lot of the "artists". It sounds as if he's trying to be all things to all people ...

Actually, Dave, when I saw this thread last night, I was tempted to comment that, with McCoy Tyner being the headliner, at least they were presenting real jazz, and not some sort of hybrid off-shoot. Based on what you are writing, perhaps I got excited too soon.

Each summer I bemoan the fact that it is becoming difficult to find any jazz at any of the several "jazz festivals" here in the Northeast (and probably ay Newport, also.) The JVC Jazz Festival in the City still has a lot to offer, and then there is the one in Rochester (NY), tauted as great, receiving rave reviews, and for which half of the city turns out. It has featured such renowned greats as the Queen of Zydaco, and the Mambo Kings were another top headliner!

I feel a new thread about definitions brewing up inside me. . .

Ed

I'll just say I consider myself pretty open to a lot of different type of things, but on the other hand, I'm pretty darn picky when it comes to "jazz". I like what I like..sorry..

I just read some things in the LA Times article that bothered me. I won't say specifically but if you read it and you're a long time jazz fan, I think you'll know what I'm referring to...

Once you start narrowing the type of music that you call jazz, not only do you restrict the freedom to use other music as an influence, but you also turn jazz into a classical form, in which case it ceases to be jazz.

Hi BDB,

It appears that you have just written yourself into an oxymoron. If I am “narrowing the type of music that you [ I ] call jazz”, then what are you doing when you write, “in which case it ceases to be jazz”?

Make no mistake -- I wish the sort of commitment, resources, and mind-share that went into your San Francisco jazz center project were still alive-and-well here in New York State. I am envious! I sincerely hope that the effort is successful ARTISTICALLY as well as financially. If they “sell out” their vision and name-sake of Jazz, in order to “sell out” the admission tickets -- well, they will be in good company, sadly.

_________________________
In music, everything one does correctly helps everything else.

You call it writing into an oxymoron; I call it pointing out a contradiction.

In any case, the broad vision of jazz here has worked for 30 years. If it means that the music will change so that it no longer fits an older definition, so be it. It has happened before, and it will happen again.

Yes -- but -- In reference to what performances will be presented at the new Jazz venue: there is a drastic difference between a natural or organic evolution of jazz forms; and what certain promoters are calling "jazz" in order sell tickets and fill seats.

To you and to me, neither of those processes has much to do with the other. But here's the danger: If I am a complete novice to the world of jazz, and I go to a "jazz" venue where Lady GooGoo dominates the evening, I will probably come away with a cockeyed sense of what jazz is. It is sort of like Etta James several years ago at Montreaux, singing a long-over-extended rendition of "Shake Your Bootie". I believe it was wildly popular with all the "fans" who had indulged themselves a little too much, and now were enjoying a song on which they did not have to focus. If someone missed the lyrics, there was no worry - it would be repeated, more than less the exact same way, at least fifty more times.

_________________________
In music, everything one does correctly helps everything else.

I'd like to think I had an infinitesimally small part in the genesis of this facility. I briefly wrote for the All About Jazz website, and a little over a decade ago I interviewed SF Jazz Director Randall Kline.

One of the questions I asked him was whether providing jazz in an auditorium -- as all SF Jazz concerts have been -- is not as listener friendly as the more intimate confines of a club setting. He bristled -- I imagine he had heard the complaint before -- and defended the venues he presented jazz in.

Perhaps he launched this new center, which is touted as providing the excellent acoustics of an auditorium with the intimacy of a club, because he got tired of hearing questions like mine.

I'm looking forward to checking it out sometime. But I think I'll always prefer the small club atmosphere for jazz.

Well, not all SF Jazz concerts have been in auditoriums. There were some early ones in the Green Room of the Veterans Memorial building, and a number of them have been at Bimbo's 365 Club. There have been shows in Grace Cathedral and other religious buildings. There have been shows in various other halls, like the Forum at Yerba Buena Center.